1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a sanitizer for sanitizing various surfaces including hands, hardware, fixtures, appliances, including the interior of refrigerators, countertops, equipment, utensils, HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) systems, including ductless mini-split systems, and specifically to ion generators and ion electrode assemblies that do not use sacrificial anodes and cathodes, and do not require the addition of chemicals, and do not produce ozone to sanitize.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is well known that many infectious diseases and pathogens are communicated through touch or contact. Therefore, commonly touched items in public areas and facilities such as doorknobs, handles, fixtures, and other surfaces may spread such infectious diseases and pathogens. People are particularly concerned with touching various surfaces in public restrooms even communal restrooms at a work place due to actual or perceived sanitary conditions of those restrooms and the users of the restrooms. However, contact with door handles, knobs and other fixtures related to the restroom is many times unavoidable. Other exemplary surfaces that may be unavoidable and be contaminated with pathogens from people or other sources including food preparation may include drinking fountains, kitchen counter tops, shared appliances, refrigerator shelves, and nearly any other surface that multiple people may contact. Therefore, many people generally find it desirable to avoid or minimize contact with such surfaces when possible.
People are particularly concerned with the cleanliness of surfaces after washing their hands or before the eating of food. However, touching many of the surfaces in a restroom after washing hands or in a kitchen while preparing food particularly in a work place kitchen is unavoidable. For example, in most restrooms as a person must touch the handle of the door to exit a restroom, touch the same faucet handle used to turn on the water or to turn off the faucet, which may recontaminate the just cleaned hands. In a kitchen, other than door and fixture handles such as faucets, a refrigerator door handle or the surface of a microwave and light switches may all be contaminated with various pathogens. Some people use extra paper towels to cover and touch handles of door or faucets in certain situations, however, generally this is wasteful and adds expense for the facility including increased paper cost as well as increased labor cost for replacing the paper products more frequently.
In addition, many people have desired to sanitize the air exiting from HVAC systems, fans, as well as sanitize the HVAC system itself. The air within a building may include various pathogens and other harmful items, which is desirable to remove. In addition, the HVAC system itself may form an environment that is conducive to harmful pathogens growing, such as due to the moisture present, as well as the air that moves through the system. A number of prior methods have been proposed, all having limited success or significant drawbacks in sanitizing various surfaces, particularly on individual's hands, especially for individuals who have chemical sensitivity issues. The first method is generally more frequent cleaning of such surfaces, however, this increases time and labor costs and generally people are distrustful that the surfaces have been properly cleaned. In addition, even if the cleaning was thorough and no pathogens exist on the surface, the very first contact by a person may place undesirable infectious agents or pathogens on the surface and any subsequent users may come in contact with such infectious agents or pathogens. Therefore, the more frequent cleanings do not solve the problem of contaminated surfaces.
Some facilities provide various cleaning wipes, liquids, or sponges that may be used for cleaning of the surface by a user. While these are generally capable of cleaning the surface, the use is limited to a person actually using them. A big disadvantage to these wipes, liquids, or sponges is that they require frequent replacement thereby increasing the cost for the facility. Many times these anti-bacterial sprays, liquids or wipes are empty creating an undesirable situation for the person using the facility. In addition, if such sprays, liquids and the like are improperly used, the pathogens may still exist and not be substantially reduced.
To address the above problems, some manufacturers have introduced various electronic chemical sanitizers that with little to no interaction with a user at regular intervals or upon activation of a sensor, sprays a liquid on the desired surface, or upon sensing someone placing objects or body parts, such as hands in a specified area. In addition to the increased maintenance cost as well as product cost of replacing the battery and the chemical or wet material, generally most people find it undesirable to touch a moist or damp surface such as a moist or damp door handle, even if the moisture or liquid is a sanitizing chemical. In addition, many people do not like the smell or have various chemical allergies to the chemical being used on the door handle, making it difficult to use that facility. More specifically, such as in an office setting, if one worker has a chemical allergy to the cleaning device that is being used, which on a timed or activated interval sprays a door handle, it may prevent further use in that facility. To address the problems some people have proposed using ultraviolet sanitizers that when positioned or placed over a non-porous surface effectively sterilizes and sanitizes the surface. While such devices prevent the spread of pathogens passed on by contact by direct exposure to ultraviolet light, these devices generally are power intensive and require frequent battery changes or recharging unless they are hardwired into a facility's electrical system. Therefore, for doors, wherein they are controlled by a preprogrammed timer or motion sensing, their useful life is relatively limited requiring regular maintenance by the facility thereby raising costs. Many people are also concerned regarding sticking their hands on a door handle to open it where it will be bathed in ultraviolet light. The positioning of many of these devices is above a door handle or counter top which places it high enough that smaller people, such as children, may inadvertently look directly at the ultraviolet lamp which is undesirable and could cause vision issues. Therefore, the implementation of these devices as sanitizers for various fixtures that cannot fit in an enclosure has been limited due to their serious drawbacks.
To address the shortcomings with various chemical and ultraviolet light sanitizers, some manufacturers have introduced ozone sanitizers, which is known to be a potent sanitizer for various surfaces as it is a highly reactive oxidizer. Ozone works well at killing various pathogens, and unlike chemical sanitizers, leaves no chemical residue on the treated surfaces. Ozone has been highly desirable for use in food processing plants, but has had limited other practical applications. A sanitizing processing system is generally of limited use because it must control the output of ozone in a sealed environment. Therefore, it is used in large industrial only settings and have not been successfully implemented in households or small commercial applications. More specifically, the application of ozone sanitizing systems has been extremely limited by the more recent understanding that ozone may cause various health issues including according to the EPA, respiratory issues such as lung function, decrements, inflammation and permeability, susceptibility to infection, cardiac affects and more seriously respiratory symptoms including medication use, asthma attacks and more. The respiratory symptoms can include coughing, throat irritation, pain, burning, or discomfort in the chest when taking a deep breath, chest tightness, wheezing or shortness of breath. For some people, more acute or serious symptomatic responses may occur. As the concentration at which ozone effects are first observed depends mainly on the sensitivity of the individual, even some parts per billion exposure may cause noticeable issues. Therefore, other than commercial environments where the ozone application must be specifically controlled and these systems are not desirable for a broader implementation in homes, work places and other facilities, where the ozone is not easily contained, such as functioning as a door handle sanitizer for an operational door.
Existing sanitizers or ozone devices require a method of propelling the ions or ozone away from the device. As such, many of these devices use fans, compressed air, or other mechanisms for dispersing the ions. One problem with such systems is that in applications where an external power source is not readily available, batteries for fans, and other means of propulsion such as CO2 canisters must be replaced on a fairly regular basis. In mechanisms using a fan powered by battery, the fans substantially limits the life of the battery to the point where it needs to be replaced weekly or even bi-weekly in certain environments. Other systems using compressed air or CO2 require replacement or recharging of the cartridges or tanks on a regular basis. In addition, any sanitizer requiring a mechanism for propelling the ions outward such as the battery-powered fans or compressed air stop efficiently functioning, without the mechanism for propulsion.
Bipolar ionizers use a high voltage to create an electric field across two discharge points. One point creates positive ions and the other point creates negative ions. It is well known that as the number of points increases, the amount of ions that may be generated due to the nature of electrical fields and increase in surface area from using multiple points, is reduced. More specifically, the use of a single point requires that all of the electrical fields will pass through that point. As such, the production of ions is maximized by use of a single point. Traditionally, multiple points as ion sources were discouraged to maximize ion production. In addition, Bipolar ionizers use a high voltage to create an electric field across two discharge points. One point creates positive ions and the other point creates negative ions. (Note, multiple discharge points for positive and multiple discharge points for negative are acceptable). The most common methods of creating the required voltage are either a flyback transformer or a voltage multiplier circuit or a combination of the two, as illustrated in FIG. 34. These circuits are well known. Because the high voltage output is direct current (DC), two discharge points are required—one for positive and the other for negative. Most implementations of a flyback transformer use feedback from a secondary winding on the transformer to create a resonator that switches the primary side of the transformer on and off. While this circuit is simple and cost effective, it often takes long periods of time for the circuit to stabilize and reach its full output, as illustrated in the graph in FIG. 35, which shows just a small portion of the output at the peak, thereby limiting generation of ions.
In addition, certain pathogens are becoming resistant to various chemicals used in chemical sanitizers. For example, in the medical field, one of the biggest problems facing hospitals and clinics is pathogens that are resistant to various chemicals.
A number of ion generators also require thermal plasma to function. Thermals plasma ion generators produce ions, but are extremely hot, limiting their effective use in close proximity to humans, such as use in a hand sanitizer. As with any ions created by an ion generator, many of the ions are unstable and quickly convert back, limiting the effective range of the ions that are useful in sanitizing surfaces, including hands of various pathogens, yet it is desirable to space hands well away from any thermal plasma field. Therefore, thermal plasma devices have serious design constraints when used to sanitize surfaces, such as door handles and other fixtures that are in regular human contact, and any sanitizing of human body surfaces, such as hands in thermal plasma is not advisable and should be avoided. In addition, as stated above, many ion generators operate in a similar manner to ozone generators. Therefore, thermal plasma is generally undesirable because it may cause corona discharge, which is related to ozone production.
Another drawback to ion generators that use a thermal plasma is the high power consumption required to generate the thermal plasma. In general, any thermal plasma ion generator must be used connected to the power grid. Battery life of a thermal ion generator would be so short or require such large capacity batteries, therefore requiring large volumes of space, any use of the ion generator remote from the power grid would be impractical, and the maintenance requirements would be extremely high in relation to replacing or recharging the batteries. Therefore, ion generators that use thermal plasma are generally not useful to attach to doors, walls or other locations where it is difficult to connect them to the power grid. In addition, even if a thermal plasma ion generator may be placed in a position to connect to the power grid, the installation cost is typically high, and the high power consumption is expensive.
Most ion generators only generate a single type of ion, typically only negative ions. Any ion device only generating a single type of ion or more specifically, a single type of charge for the ions are generally not as effective as ion generators producing both positive and negative ions in killing pathogens to sanitize surfaces. Therefore, a need exists for an ion generator that is bipolar, not just monopolar, and more specifically, an ion generator that produces sufficient quantities of positive and negative ions.
Some sanitizers require expensive sacrificial anodes or cathodes. Sacrificial anodes or cathodes must be replaced, and in addition, sacrificial anodes or cathodes put pieces of the anode or cathode in the environment, typically as ions in a fluid, which may subject the ion generator to numerous additional regulations. In addition, if either the cathodes, anode or fluid is depleted, the sanitizer ceases to function as desired.
Similar to the many drawbacks with hand sanitizers, to date no one has found a sanitizing system or assembly that sufficiently sanitizes HVAC systems or other air handling devices, such as fans, make up air systems and the like. As HVAC systems pull in air from the building that includes pathogens, the HVAC may distribute such pathogens throughout the environment in which the HVAC system operates, such as through the ductwork. While many manufactures have tried to eliminate this issue by installing various filters of ever increasing quality, these filters are generally limited to ensure sufficient airflow, allowing most pathogens to pass through. In fact, the filter itself may become a habitat for various pathogens, creating even more problems. As such, filtering the air, while a good idea, in itself does not provide sufficient protection from airborne pathogens in most HVAC systems.
In addition, the environment in most HVAC systems, particularly ductless mini-split systems is conducive to growing various pathogens. For example, the moisture on the coils of an HVAC system, whether in a house, commercial building, vehicle, or anywhere else may create an environment for the pathogens and other unwanted organisms, such as mold, spores, bacterial and other undesirable items. There currently is no easy way to clean the coils of an air conditioning unit in most HVAC systems, particularly in vehicles and residential systems, as well as most commercials systems. As these systems cannot be cleaned, are conducive to the growth of harmful organisms, and by their very nature of moving air, are exposed to high levels of pathogens and the like, it is desirable to be able to clean them.
Some manufactures have suggested placing ozone generators in the systems, but ozone has been found to be harmful even in minor quantities to humans, so these prior systems are undesirable. Some manufactures have suggested putting an ion generating in the HVAC systems. Current ion generating systems use a glass electrode with wire mesh to create a dielectric barrier. These glass tube electrodes are extremely fragile, extremely expensive, and do not have a long life span, thereby requiring replacement at frequent intervals. For example, most glass dielectric electrodes cost over $100 each, and can easily be ruined by vibration. As such HVAC systems with their vibrations are not conducive to glass electrode ion systems, even when ignoring their high purchase price and lack of longevity. Glass electrode tubes are generally large and bulky and cannot fit in vehicles or ductless mini split systems. Therefore, there is a need for a better ion system, particularly one that can operate even in vehicles and ductless mini-split systems.
To address some of the concerns of glass electrodes, some manufactures have introduced metal bars that are suspended in the air ducts. These metal bars are usually long, large and difficult to position in system, other than large air ducts. As such, they cannot be used in vehicles, and ductless mini split systems, as they do not fit or when reduced in size do not produce enough ions to be effective. In addition, these metal bars operate at extremely high voltage and with enough amperage to require that during operation they cannot be touched by individuals without danger of possible electrocution or injury. As metal bars are conductive, the risk also may occur if the bar is improperly installed and creates an electrical connection to the metal ductwork or other items of an HVAC system.
Therefore, there is a need for an effective ion generator for use in sanitizers, hand dryers, HVAC systems and other appliances and apparatuses that do not include the above identified limitations.